


Two Sheets, One Blanket

by Akamaimom



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-05
Updated: 2010-03-05
Packaged: 2018-04-17 05:20:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4653873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akamaimom/pseuds/Akamaimom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little shippy fun, inspired by a supremely random comment on GW about the absolute sweetness of first kisses. This is a twofer about two such first kisses. Distinctly different, distinctly long-awaited, distinctly meaningful. This two-parter is unabashedly sweet and shippy, morphing into an "established relationship" phase for Jack and Sam. Also, this is the start of the Glinda Baldrich story line, for anyone who is familiar with her. Enjoy. Squee at the fluff. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Two Sheets

**_ Two Sheets, One Blanket _ **

__

__

_ This little two-fer was inspired by a comment from PolRobin on a GateWorld forum—about the sweetness of first kisses.Here are two distinctly different such kisses. _

__

_ Shippy first kisses that are unabashedly Fluffy. _

_ If you’re allergic to fluffy ship, you should proceed with caution. _

__

__

**_ Two Sheets _ **

He’d waited until each page had almost landed in the tray before tugging it the rest of the way out of the printer.O’Neill knew it was juvenile of him to do so—but frankly, at this point, he really didn’t care.

There were two of them.Two simple pieces of paper, two simple pieces of Pentagon mumbo-jumbo that effectively changed his life.

Still warm, they felt flimsy in his hand—too meager for the crucial information printed upon them.

He glanced at them briefly before turning, heading out of his office and through the Briefing Room.He paused in front of the observation window, gazing down through the bullet proof glass into the ‘Gateroom below, where several people milled around, completely oblivious to the fact that, thanks to these two sheets, everything was about to change.

He took another look at the white, twenty-four pound laser printer paper that he himself had ordered from the office supply, took a deep breath, turned, and aimed himself towards the door.

His boots echoed slightly in the empty concrete hall.He rounded a corner and trudged down the hall towards the stairs, holding the hand rail with one hand, and clutching the two sheets of paper tightly with the other. When he circled the final bend in the spiral, he stepped into the Control Room.

The pair of technicians sat in their customary chairs, and a dozen or so other people scattered the room.He walked to the far end of the banks of winky blinky arrays, peered into each cavity, but didn’t find the object of his search.On his way back towards the spiral staircase, he saw Walter staring at him quizzically.

Jack stopped, frowned, and finally growled, “What?”

“Can I help you find something in particular?”For some reason, it always bothered the sergeant when O’Neill appeared in his Control Room without previous provocation.

“Some _thing_ —no.”

“Some _one_ , then?”

The little guy was intuitive, O’Neill had to grant him that much.He lifted the papers slightly in his hand, glanced down at the printing thereon before narrowing a look back at the sergeant.“Have you seen Carter?”

“Colonel Carter?”

“No, Carter the Wonder Clown.”His lips thinned.“ _Yes_ , Colonel Carter.”

Walters screwed up his mouth, scrunched his eyebrows down behind his round glasses.“Ummmm—I think I saw her in the mess.”

“When?”

“This morning.”

“It’s now—” The General raised his arm—his papers arm—and glared at his watch.“Three forty five in the afternoon.”He looked up at Walter.“You think she’s still there?”

“Well, she might be.” The little tech replied, shrugging. “You never know.”

The General sighed, casting Walter a withering look, before turning and exiting into the hall.He made his way down the hall and to the elevator, where he punched the up button with one finger, while his others clasped the papers to his palm.He waited impatiently, tapping a foot, kicking the concrete wall next to the elevator door, whistling.It seemed to take forever.

When the elevator doors finally opened, O’Neill immediately started forward, but stopped when he saw that several people waited to exit.He stepped aside with a wave of his hand to let them off, the sheets of paper crinkling loudly with the motion.Once it was empty, he headed in, punching the button that read, “19”.

The elevator made a stop on Level 26, where it admitted two lieutenants who worked in the mess, and again on Level 25, where the doors opened again.

“Jack!”

Daniel.The General raised his eyebrows and allowed exactly half a smile.

“Where you heading?”Daniel entered, turning to stand shoulder to shoulder with his friend.

“Up.”He nodded at the display, where two buttons were illuminated.

“You going to the commissary?”Daniel squinted at the twin column of buttons.

“Nope.”Jack scratched at his nose, hiding his smirk with the papers in his hand.

“I’m just saying.Because that’s what’s on Level 22.”

“I’m _not_ going to the commissary.”

“Because the other button that’s lit up is for Level 19.”

Jack looked at Daniel and raised one eyebrow.He did his best Teal’c impression.“Indeed.”

Daniel’s head drooped.“Jack—you know you’re not allowed up there right now.”

“I know.”

“She stated _explicitly_ that you had to stay away from her lab.”

“I know.”The General nodded once, his eyes widening slightly.

“You can’t bother her right now.She needs to finish this project.The guys at Groom Lake are practically begging her for it.”

“I _know_.”Jack folded his arms in front of him, crinkling the papers to his chest.“But I’ve got something she needs.”

Daniel’s eyes grew huge—he lowered his chin, peering at the General from over the rims of his glasses.“And what would that be?”

The corner of Jack’s mouth lifted slightly.He stood still, silent, watching the numbers change on the digital display over the door.

The elevator bumped to a halt, and after a moment, the doors slid open.With a timid, ‘Excuse me, sir,” The Lieutenants exited, leaving Daniel and Jack alone in the lift.

Daniel waited three floors before speaking again.“You’re planning something.”

“Not really.”Jack shook his head, shrugging unconvincingly.

“I know you, Jack.You’re up to something.”

The elevator stopped, and Daniel scooted in front of the door before Jack could crowd it.He studied the General’s face, then shook his own head.“You know I’ll figure it out.”

Jack scratched his neck with his empty hand, scowling.“Somehow, I doubt that, Daniel.”

Then he stepped around the archaeologist, through the doors, and into the hall.

He went straight down yet another concrete corridor, turning at the fourth door on the left.It was closed, and he raised a hand and knocked lightly at it with his knuckles.

No answer.

He knocked again.

Still nothing.

So he carefully shoved the door open with his empty hand, and took a tentative step inside.Something was moving on the other side of the table.Jack stopped just inside the room and cleared his throat.

“Carter?”

The movement stalled, and a head popped up from beneath the table.

Felger.

Damn.

“General O’Neill!”Felger stood fully in one swift, if awkward, motion.He was holding two lengths of wire, one in each hand. “To what do we owe this fine pleasure?”

“Carter around?”

“Colonel Doctor Carter isn’t here at the moment, General O’Neill.”Felger grinned hugely—his teeth brilliant in the dim lighting of the lab.“She’s in the base storage area procuring more wiring so that she and I—that is to say, herself and myself—I mean, of course, her and me?—can finish hooking up the simul-impulse coordinator with the crystalline data bank of the Co-existational diode core.”

Perfect silence met this pronouncement.The General’s mouth gaped open, his brows lowered over narrowed eyes.Across the table, Felger’s grin noticeably slipped.The scientist’s eyes darted between O’Neill and the open door behind O’Neill, as if salvation lay just beyond, and he were judging to see if he’d make it before the General exploded. 

But detonation wasn’t in the plan, today.O’Neill had two sheets of paper that said so.So he only shook his head in mock amazement and said, “No flux capacitor?”

Felger blanched.“I—uh—wasn’t aware that we—uh—had those in storage, sir.Shall I call her in and rework the plans?”

Jack rolled his eyes.“It was a _joke_ , Felger.”He emphasized the ‘g’—as in ‘geranium’.Just exactly as he’d been asked not to.

“Uh, sir—that’s ‘—ger’, sir.Like in ‘gold.”

“Got it.”The General nodded—a bit too eager for realism—then saluted sarcastically.“Then, carry on, Doctor.”

Felger grinned again—although weaker, this time—and lifted a hand in farewell as O’Neill turned and headed for the door. 

Onward to the storage rooms.

Jack turned back for the elevator, and pushed the button, but abruptly changed his mind and crossed the hall towards the stairwell.Shouldering the door open, he steadily climbed the two flights to Level 17, then used his key card to enter the corridor found there.He knew that Carter liked to use a specific storage area on 17 for her more sensitive items, and figured she’d be there finding whatever it was that Felger had been blathering about.

But, alas, when he arrived, the door was shut tight, and swiping his key card in the reader only revealed a cold, dark room with a layer of dust throughout.No one had been there for a while.

He stood in the corridor outside the storage area, momentarily stymied.Reflecting on the daily habits of his Second in Command, he tried to imagine exactly where she would be at—he looked at his watch—four eighteen in the afternoon.

Commissary?The head?Infirmary?

He wished he had one of those communication things like on Star Trek.Whack your chest, someone answers.Handy.

With a sigh, he turned and walked back to the elevator.He’d announce that he needed to see her from the Control Room.

Because he did _need_ to see her.

Seven minutes later, he came to a stop directly behind Walter’s chair.

In that quasi-psychic way that the little man had, the sergeant immediately placed a hand on the intercom.“Want me to page the Colonel, sir?”

“Wouldya?”

“I would, sir, but she’s down there in the ‘Gateroom.”Walter cast a quick look at the General over his shoulder.“Maybe you’d just like to give it to her down there.”

O’Neill froze.“Give what to her?”

“The paper, sir.”

“Who said I had a paper to give to her?”

“General Hammond, sir.”

Jack nodded, pursing his lips.“Of course he did.”

“But I can still page her, sir, if you’d like.”

O’Neill waved a hand and pivoted back towards the spiral staircase.“It’s okay, Walter.Thanks.”

He counted the stairs—not because he wanted to know how many there were, but because he needed to pace himself.When he emerged into the ‘Gateroom, he purposefully paused at the threshold, to not appear too eager.He walked slowly, just so that he wouldn’t seem impatient.

He still felt like a randy school boy as he stopped next to where she stood, quietly conversing with Siler.

And it felt like an eternity before she noticed he was even there.

She held up a finger mid-sentence to Siler, with a polite, “Excuse me”, and then turned to the General. 

“Did you need something, sir?”

And even though he’d practiced this moment since his conference call the day before with Hammond and his cronies, he still found himself unceremoniously thrusting the first paper at her, with a gruff, “Here.”

She took it, attempted to pull it smooth, and then turned it right side up.Flicking a glance in his direction, she then dropped her gaze to the sheet of paper.

It only took her a moment.Her head shot up, her eyes wide, her teeth worrying at her upper lip.“Sir?What’s this—I don’t understand—”

He handed her the other paper.She yanked this one out of his hand, turned in hastily, and actually _moved her lips_ while she read it.He’d never seen her do that before, and he’d watched her mouth _a lot_ over the past eight some-odd years.

He was still concentrating on that mouth when he noticed she was staring at him.

“What?”

“What’s this mean, sir?”

“You’re the smarty-pants doctor, Colonel.What _does_ it mean?”

“You’re being transferred to DC.The Pentagon.”

“Yes.” He nodded.

“And I’m being sent to Area Fifty One?”

“Apparently.”

“We won’t be here anymore.”She shook her head, gesturing between the two of them with an open hand.

“That, we won’t.”

“And I’ll have a new boss.”

“Right again.”

“Effective?”

“Yesterday.”

Her eyes had grown impossibly round, she’d started breathing in little pants, through her mouth, exactly the way he’d always imagined she’d look when—

She squeaked.

She actually _squeaked_.

And it was only a single step that they needed to take, a single step before their bodies came into full contact, and her arms had twined around his neck, and his hands clasped her tighter at the small of her back, and somehow the world became aligned, and he was finally tasting her.

Right there, in the ‘Gateroom, with half the base standing around, watching as he lifted his hands to frame her face, and hers made their way into the scruff that was his hair, and they shifted positions only to get closer, one of his legs insinuating itself between hers, and her knee hooking itself oh-so-nicely on his thigh.

Later, Siler and Walter would argue over who it was that began clapping first.But they would both agree that once it started, it took a while to stop—the entire ‘Gateroom had echoed with thunderous applause that neither of the honorees would either acknowledge or recognize, so involved were they with each other.

Applause that had served as a soundtrack for two sheets of paper, wafting their way carelessly to the ground, dropped from otherwise busy fingertips, where they lay until the janitorial staff would sweep them away.


	2. One Blanket

**_One Blanket_ **

 

 

Traffic was slow.

 

And not just regular-slow—but REALLY slow—accident-on-the-turnpike-with-multiple-injuries-and-no-offramp-slow.

 

He should have walked.  At this point, it would have taken him less time to walk to Union Station and hop the metro. He could have Red-Lined it to the medical center on the Metro, bypassing this entire traffic snafu. Maybe then his driver wouldn’t be staring at him in the rear-view mirror, watching him as he fiddled and fidgeted, and found odd things to scratch at.

 

He’d been sitting in his car ever since he’d turned his phone back on and listened to his voice mail.  The single new message had made his skin crawl.

 

Hospital.

 

 

 

“You’re listed as Samantha Carter’s emergency contact.”  The nurse had chirped.  “You’d probably better get here as fast as you can.”

 

So, without glancing at his watch, without considering the fact that it was late on a Thursday afternoon, a Thursday afternoon before a long holiday weekend, he’d left the Capitol Building and made a beeline for the car with which the Pentagon supplied him, and growled his orders to the driver. Settling in the back seat, he’d waited, and tried not to appear too worried.

 

The meeting with the Senate Committee overseeing Homeworld Security had grown testy. He’d been closeted in with those shrubs since just after breakfast.  Jack had learned early on in this assignment that lowly Major Generals were expected to turn phones off during these marathon hearings, and so he’d dutifully punched the button before sitting at his spot along the long table. An aide had handed him his briefing reports—half a redwood’s worth—and he’d settled in for a day spent in abject boredom.

 

The meeting hadn’t disappointed.  Twice, he’d had to shake himself awake, and he’d drunk so much coffee in an effort to keep alert that by the time they’d broken for lunch, his eyeballs had been floating.

 

He’d actually pondered an escape plan while he’d stood in front of the urinal. Wondered if a Major General in charge of protecting the world from alien incursion would get in trouble if he pulled the fire alarm.

 

The other military contingent had asked if he’d wanted to join them at the cafeteria, but the thought of sitting around talking about still _more_ work made the General want to poke his eyes out with one of the stars on his shoulder.  Instead, Jack had bought a sandwich and a stale bag of chips from a vendor outside the Capitol Building and sat on the steps near the Mall. Between watching people and choking down lunch, he’d wished that he were back at Cheyenne Mountain, where at least things had the possibility of being more interesting than watching dry rot.

 

The only thing that made Washington bearable is that Carter was here now, too.

 

Carter made _everything_ bearable.

 

The meeting resumed just after one, and he’d settled back into his seat. He’d said a few words about the budget of the combined activities of the SGC and the other departments involved, dissuaded one senator of her notion that with the new modifications, the Hammond could transport government officials instead of their having to fly on jets, and drunk enough more coffee that he had felt eerily beholden to a certain Columbian grower.

 

And he’d wondered where his wife was. 

 

Shopping, probably.

 

They’d planned on feeding Daniel and Vala after their joint lecture at the Smithsonian tonight.  That the two of them had hooked up after the Ori’s demise had not surprised Jack in the least. That they had partnered on teaching tours about ancient cultures and civilizations while raising two of the cutest and most precocious little girls in the universe still had O’Neill scratching his head.  Daniel, that wide-eyed moralistic confliction of a man, had finally figured it out.

 

It had taken Daniel just that much longer to do so than it had taken O’Neill. That fact allowed Jack to be perfectly comfortable in feeling superior.  After all, the General had taken this post—this hell on earth posting in the arm pit of the country—just so that he would be able to pursue his other main interest.

 

An interest who now lay in a hospital on the other side of town.

 

Across the great divide of going-home rush hour traffic on the Thursday before a holiday weekend.

 

He was never going to get there.

 

Abruptly, he scooted forward on the seat and tapped his driver on the shoulder. He’d never gotten comfortable with the thought of being driven places—hadn’t fallen into the habit of requesting a specific person to take the wheel whenever he had to venture outside the Pentagon.  His secretary, a formidable woman by the unlucky name of Glinda Baldrich, always arranged the transportation, and she’d obviously just tagged whoever at Motor Pool wasn’t currently busy.

 

So he didn’t know this guy from Adam.

 

“Hey.” Jack tapped him again when the first gesture failed to elicit a response.  “How far from Union Station?”

 

“Now?” The driver peered around, calculating.

 

“No—next week.  _Yes_. Now.”

 

“Uh—” He looked around, squinting into the late afternoon sun peeking in between two buildings.  “Quarter mile. Tops.  Probably less.”

 

“How long will it take to get to the Medical Center?”

 

“In this traffic—probably an hour and a half.  If not more.”

 

Jack grimaced.  “I’m making a run for it.”  He popped the lock on the door and opened it, carefully avoiding the car next to him. Stepping out, he swung the door shut, and rapped sharply on the roof of the car before turning and making his way through the sea of metal to the sidewalk.

 

After only a few minutes, he had left his car and driver far behind. Weaving through the teeming humanity on the sidewalks, he reached into a breast pocket and donned his sunglasses, wished he could take off the coat and hat he wore.  He was in his monkey suit—apropos for the meeting he’d just attended—but he wished that he were wearing his BDUs and boots instead. Clothes more suitable for traversing the wilds of DC.

 

Rounding a corner, he came within view of the station.  He ratcheted up the pace, reaching into his pocket for his metro card. 

 

O’Neill knew he looked hopelessly out of place. Around him were all kinds of folks—business people in suits, secretaries and shop workers in casual dresses and slacks, young kids with their pants hanging down past their butts. He saw tourists—notable mostly because they were the ones that looked lost.  There were even a few military types around—green, or blue, or even a few camouflaged—but he was the only two–star General taking the subway today.

 

He swiped his card at the entrance and passed into the station. He followed the cues to the Red Line, arriving on the platform just as the train coasted to a stop.

 

He stood by and let a group of high schoolers pass, then entered the car, and found a seat near the back.

 

Twenty three minutes. 

 

That’s how long it should take.  There was a schedule on the wall next to him.

 

Twenty three minutes.

 

His hand swiped a weary path down his face, and he crossed his arms over his chest, one knee beginning to jog up and down in a nervous motion he barely even noticed. 

 

Twenty three minutes.

 

Jack pushed back the dark blue blazer he wore and glared at his watch.

 

Twenty two minutes.

 

“Late for something?”

 

O’Neill jumped slightly at the voice.  It was coming from directly in front of him—a red-headed kid around eight years old was kneeling on the seat in front of him, resting his forearms on the metallic rimmed back of the bench. 

 

“You could say that.”

 

“Late for a war?”

 

“No.”

 

“Then why are you dressed up like that?”

 

“I just came from a meeting.”

 

“Are you really a soldier?”

 

O’Neill yanked his glasses off and stowed them back in his breast pocket. “Yes.  I am.”

 

“My dad’s a soldier.”  The kid was staring at what was commonly known as the “fruit salad” on O’Neill’s jacket. “He doesn’t have as many ribbons as you do.”

 

“Oh.” Jack watched as the kid leaned further over the seat, peering closely at his uniform.  “Okay.”

 

The kid’s mom turned, and Jack could see that she had a baby in a sling thing across her chest.  “Devon, come on. Sit normally.” She fiddled with her older child until he was seated, and O’Neill could only see the top of his ginger hair. She turned her attention back to the baby, though, at a squawk-like cry, and Devon found his way backwards again, hanging over the chair.

 

“Where you going?”

 

“Bethesda Medical Center.”

 

“You sick?”

 

“No.”

 

“Your mom sick?”

 

Despite himself, Jack smiled.  “No.”

 

“Someone’s gotta be sick, or you wouldn’t be going there.”

 

“My wife.”

 

“You married?”

 

“Obviously, if I have a wife.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Why am I married?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

The General grinned full force, then.  “You’ll figure it out when you’re older, kid.”

 

Devon considered this, then scrunched up his face and said, “She’s hot, huh? Gotta marry a girl when she’s hot. That’s what my dad says.”

 

Devon’s mother, obviously embarrassed, flattened her hand over his mouth and yanked him back around.  She twisted her head so that Jack could see both of her eyes.  “I’m so sorry.  I can’t seem to make him stop taking sometimes.  The little mouth just keeps on going.”

 

“I understand.”  He smiled, and a vision of Daniel with a bandana tied around his head flickered in his memory. “I sometimes have the same problem, myself.”

 

She smiled companionably, a little embarrassed, and turned back around.

 

He shoved back his sleeve and checked his watch again.  Eight minutes. 

 

The baby started to cry, now, in full force, and Devon used the opportunity to turn around again.  “So, is she?”

 

“Is she what?”

 

“Pretty.”

 

O’Neill nodded slowly.  “Oh yeah.”

 

“Good.” The kid narrowed his eyes wisely and raised a splayed hand in a gesture of relief.  “Because there’s nothing worse than being saddled with a dog.”

 

“Devon!” Mom jerked him with a handful of shirt, putting him back into his place.  “I’m sorry, again.”  She cast the apology over her shoulder, raising her voice over the cries of the baby in the sling. “Really—he’s a good kid. Just mouthy.”

 

“It’s all right, ma’am.”  Jack tried not to look at his watch again.  Listened as Devon started kicking the seat in front of him.  Rode along with the little jerks and motions of the train. Tried not to look at his watch again. Tried again, but failed.

 

One minute.

 

The train slowed, then coasted into the station at the Medical Center, and Jack watched Mom corral Devon with one hand while steadying the finally quiet baby in the sling.  They exited in front of him, then turned off in the opposite direction from that in which Jack needed to go.

 

He hoofed it quickly, made his way into the sprawling hospital, and then into the Emergency Area, only to be told by a wizened volunteer at the desk that Sam had just been moved to a private room.

 

She’d pointed at the elevator, given him a slip with a number on it. He’d waited—two minutes—for the lift, pressed the appropriate buttons, and waited as he rose.  And then he stepped out into a floor much quieter than the emergency ward.  He removed his hat, fiddled with it, clung to it like it was a lifeline.

 

The walls were pink. 

 

Soothing color, he assumed, although he himself had always been partial to green.

 

A doctor in scrubs walked down the hall towards him, and Jack swallowed a sudden bout of nerves and approached him.

 

“My wife was brought in today—Samantha—” His throat felt like sandpaper.

 

“Carter. O’Neill.”  The doctor smiled warmly.  “She’s doing much better now, sir.  Perhaps you’d like to follow me.”

 

“How is she?  What happened?”

 

“I’ll let her tell you that, General O’Neill.  But she’ll be fine.”

 

They rounded a corner into a more private hallway, and Jack suddenly found himself standing in a doorway just like all the others—except that this one was _hers_.  His wife’s.  A paper had been stuck to a little cork board next to the door with her name on it.

 

His mouth instantly dried up.

 

“Really, sir, she’s fine.  She just gave us all a bit of a scare.”

 

Jack nodded, looked down, and realized that his hat was now completely scrunched into a ball.  Only the stiff black bill had survived.

 

The physician took pity on him and levered open the door, swinging it partially open. “Go on in, sir. She’s been asking about you.”

 

O’Neill hesitated in the doorway, taking in the scene.

 

She was propped on some pillows on the bed, dressed in one of those gown things that he hated—that tied in the back and on the front, with snaps along the sides. She looked smaller, somehow, laying there, her face pale, her eyes dimmer than normal.  Her long hair had been caught up at her nape this morning with a clip, and it had slipped from the mooring now, and lay in a riotous tumble around her head.  She was speaking in low tones to a nurse, her voice weaker than normal, almost breathy.

 

He summoned up his courage and stepped forward.  He’d been scared—he found that he was man enough to admit it. Frightened that he’d lost her—those words on his voice mail alluding to something far worse than this scene—this quiet healing in the relative comfort of this room.  He stopped at the foot of the bed and nudged it gently with his thigh.

 

“So, what’s up?”

 

And then his wife looked at him—recognized him—and the smile returned. She tried to sit up further, but was stopped by the nurse.

 

“You need to take it easy, Colonel, you’ve lost a lot of blood.”

 

Sam deftly ignored her and focused completely on her husband.

 

“You’re late.”

 

“I had that thing.  With the Senate Commission. I got the message when I turned the phone back on.”

 

She nodded and quirked an eyebrow upwards.  “You missed it.”

 

“I’m sorry, Sam.”  He moved forward, past the nurse who was wise enough to step out of his way, and up to his wife’s side. Bending, he captured her pale lips in a long, slow kiss.  When he pulled back, he searched her face.  “So sorry.”

 

“Yes, well.  You’ve got a lot of making up to do.”

 

“That goes without saying.”  He kissed her again.  “So—shopping?”

 

“Yep. Grocery story. And then I just kind of blacked out—and when I came to, I was in the ambulance, and, well, I hurt a lot, and there was blood and stuff everywhere.”

 

“So they brought you here.”

 

“An obvious choice.”

 

“And—”

 

“And—” She paused, looking behind him as someone else entered the room. He turned to see the nurse wheeling in a little cart.  Only it wasn’t like a normal cart—it was plastic and looked like a drawer that people put vegetables in inside their refrigerators. 

 

“And what?”

 

“And this.”  She reached her arms out, and the nurse lifted a bundle out of the cart.  A bundle wrapped in a blue striped blanket.  A bundle that was making little tiny noises, and waving a little tiny fist.

 

For the first time in Jack’s adult life, his heart stopped.  Actually stopped.  He’d known it was going to happen—been there through the ultrasounds and doctor’s appointments, and even sat on the edge of the tub with her, staring at the little stick as it made up its mind whether or not to turn blue.

 

But seeing that little blue striped blanket, seeing that tiny, little fist.

 

Good heavens above, it was real.

 

And his wife was clutching it to her, holding that little life in the crook of her arm, adjusting the folds of that striped blanket so that he could see the tiny face inside.  And he leaned over her and peered at the wonder.  Reached out and touched the fist with a trembling finger.

 

“You want to hold him, Daddy?”

 

He wasn’t sure he could.

 

But he reached out anyway, and took hold of his son, and it all came back to him—just how to seat the bundle safely, how to support the neck and head. How to sway back and forth, that gentle, innate bounce up and down.

 

How to completely fall in love all at once, all over again.

 

“Well?” His wife reached out and touched his side, and he didn’t look at her, because if he did, he wouldn’t have been able to bear the joy.

 

“He’s little.”  Again with the sandpaper.

 

“He’s perfect.”

 

Jack bent his head toward the little blue striped blanket and pressed his lips to the wrinkled forehead there. 

 

Perfect? Well, _that_ went without saying.


End file.
